


Because this isn't Paris

by nea_writes



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Family Shenanigans, M/M, Meet the Family, Multi, Talk shit about Komui and Lena will murder you with an ice pick, The whole noah family is gonna be there it'll be great, Timcanpy's a dog and Mugen's a cat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-17 12:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13659096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nea_writes/pseuds/nea_writes
Summary: Meet the parents, they said. It’ll be fine, they said. Don’tworryso much, they said.Allen stared at the ceiling splattered in pancake mix, egg yolks, bacon grease, and the fire slowly building on the stove, listening to the cacophony and yells as Tyki and Kanda devolved into a fistfight and Link attempted to put out the fire and thought;You goddamn liars.Or, the one where Kanda and Link meet Allen's family.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by anon, "They're going to hate me," with Kanda/Allen/Link. The original idea for this was pre-kal with meet-cutes or something but I figured something new for the kal tag on the archive might be nice. 
> 
> Written because I kind of want something to have fun with on the side, versus all this serious fic I've been writing recently.

Having two boyfriends was a bit of trial, Allen mused, controlling the end of the spoon he had between his lips in a balancing act.

Across from him Link scrolled dutifully through the news on his tablet, sipping at a cup of coffee (black, six sugars) with a blueberry muffin half eaten beside it. Next to Link, Kanda downed the protein shake made of whey, oatmeal, blackberries, and bits and pieces of this and that (made lovingly by Link, who kept track of such things) beside a plate of kale and eggs. He was freshly showered after his intensive morning work-out and was currently dripping water from his hair all over the floor (that Allen had _just_ mopped last night). Unlike Link, Kanda preferred to eat with no distraction.

Allen sipped from his now cold coffee (creamer and three sugars, thank you very much), dreading the conversation he knew either Link or Kanda would bring up. Link had touched on it last night and Kanda was bullheaded when things got into his head. Allen felt very much cornered.

Could he make a break for it? He could reasonably claim being late for work (which he always was if Link wasn’t minding the time on his wristwatch that Allen was expressly forbidden from touching or even _looking_ at).

He glanced at his plate that wasn’t yet finished. It had been a delicious breakfast he’d made himself while Link had prepared Kanda’s shake — a baguette sliced thinly and toasted with roma tomatoes, olive oil, a dressing Link had made two nights ago, poached eggs, various spices (Allen was a slapdash cook, to Link’s chagrin), all centered around a heap of leftover beef and kale that Kanda had insisted about halfway through that he include. It was quite a feat if Allen said so himself, and he was seventh-eighths of the baguette through. Perhaps if he left now, while Kanda and Link were distracted, he could get away with it?

He’d barely stood halfway from his seat before Kanda’s hand clamped down vice-like on Allen’s wrist. Glaring from his mop of hair not yet combed, Kanda snapped, “Oh no you fucking don’t. Sit down.”

“But I’ll be late,” Allen said weakly, attempting a smile. Link glanced up over his glasses to pin Allen with a look that left him immediately slinking back down, scowling.

“This isn’t fair,” Allen said loudly, pressing his feet down repeatedly on the leg of the table that wasn’t quite level, forcing the tabletop to bounce. Link merely lifted his cup up and Kanda downed the last of his shake. Well aware they were ignoring him, Allen continued, raising his voice, “This is _tyranny._ Why do you two always gang up on me? Can’t get you to agree on a single movie or what we’ll have for dinner but oh no, when it’s time to bully _me?_ Nothing gets you two together faster. I have work! I’ll be late—”

Kanda snorted.

“—I have a train to catch! I _do_ try to be on time you know.”

Around a sip of his drink Link coughed, fooling no one.

“This is such bullshit. I swear you don’t want to, _I_ don’t want to, _no one_ wants to. You think I haven’t seen them in a year because I desperately want to? Seriously. You’ll regret it. We should write our wills,” Allen concluded solemnly.

Kanda rolled his eyes and stood from the table, taking Link’s empty muffin wrapper along with his plate to the kitchen. Allen crossed his arms and glowered at Link, well aware that he was pouting. Sometimes, if he managed to look particularly endearing, he could get away with it.

Link met his glare, cocked a brow, and sipped obnoxiously loud.

Allen groaned, throwing his head back to rest on the chair and contemplate the texture of the ceiling. “You don’t understand,” Allen moaned, reaching up to press his heels over his palms and forcing his chair back on its hind legs. “They’re _insane,_ there’s so many of them, they all talk so much, they’re _impossible_ to deal with, when you have more than two in one room it’s like anarchy.” He lifted one hand to see if they were convinced.

Link met his glance with the driest expression he owned, of which Allen knew he had many.

Allen slammed forward to rest his chair back on all fours, smacking the table with his palm. “I swear on _Timcanpy_ you’re gonna regret it.”

“Oh?” Link said at last, amusement curling his lips. “That’s quite serious. Did you hear that, Kanda? He swears on _Timcanpy.”_

Kanda came back, pot of coffee in hand to refill Link’s and Allen’s. He looked as if he’d exhausted his repertoire of eye rolling for the day at Allen’s dramatics and had settled for the most sardonic look he owned.

“Timcanpy!” Kanda shouted over his shoulder. Disturbed from whatever havoc he was wrecking in Kanda’s gym, Tim came bounding the hall with truly deafening thuds, and at the sight of the lovable giant dog every single word Allen had spoken turned to stone to settle in his stomach.

“Tim,” Allen crooned, sliding out of his chair and to his knees to accept a wet and furry hug that nearly barreled him over. “Tim, Tim, Tim I didn’t mean any of that, you know I love you more than everything in this world combined, you can’t listen to Kanda’s lies—”

“Me?” Kanda demanded incredulously. “Lying? Holy shit, I think the beansprout’s officially gone nuts.”

Link sipped his coffee and grimaced at its much more bitter taste with the added splash, side-eyeing Allen’s affectionate pats on Tim’s large head. “You mentioned your family has a large home, correct? Perhaps Timcanpy would enjoy the space to run around.”

At that, a large chunk of Allen’s resolve withered away.

“For the fucking _dog_ he’ll go, but not us?” Kanda said in disbelief. “What an asshole.”

Allen stuck his chin out, resolute. “You can’t talk shit, Kanda. Who was the one who bought an entire leash and collar set for their _cat?”_

Kanda sniffed, nose turned up. “Mugen deserved it.”

“Mugen always deserves it,” Link conceded, breaking the ensuing argument as the only one without a pet to moon over. Despite Kanda and Allen’s offers, Link was quite adamant that two pets were more than enough. _Especially when they both have… so much personality._

“It’s true they haven’t met Tim,” Allen admitted, ruffling the dog’s ears with both hands to Tim’s dismay. He snorted in Allen’s face and then sneezed, and Allen laughed. “But!” He said, holding a finger up. “I’m still saying no.”

Kanda scowled and Link frowned, and Link finally locked and set aside his tablet to face Allen seriously. “Is this…” Link began, hesitant. He always was in matters of the heart.

Kanda, however, was not. “Is it because you don’t want _us_ to meet your family?”

“What?” Allen eyes grew wide, and he saw then how his continued refusal might be misunderstood.

“You met ours,” Link said, voice edging towards hurt. Link was from a foster family, as was Kanda, though Kanda’s was admittedly more tightknit. “Isn’t it time we met yours?”

Sighing, Allen sat back and crossed his legs, allowing Timcanpy to clamber into his lap even though the dog reached his own head at sitting height. “No, no, that’s not it,” Allen said, subdued. “It’s just… they’re not _bad,_ but they really are… impossible.”

“Impossible,” Kanda reiterated, taking the chair closest to Allen to straddle. He reached over to scratch Tim’s head with elegant fingers. “They sound exactly like you.”

“What!” Allen squawked, offended. “We’re nothing alike! They’re loud, and annoying, and obnoxious, and they like to cheat at board games, and if you miss _one_ dinner it’s the end of the world and it’s like you personally shit on your ancestor’s grave or, I don’t know, they’re just. So much.”

Link’s face had lost all that hurt and had returned to looking mildly amused, and even by his expression alone Allen knew they hadn’t bought the truth he was speaking.

Allen groaned again, burying his face into Timcanpy’s abundant fur and ignoring he excited barks Tim gave. “You don’t understand,” Allen said weakly. “It’ll be Meet the Campbells instead of the Fockers.”

They both stared at him. “The _what?”_

“Nothing,” Allen sighed.  

 

* * *

 

 Lenalee and Lavi were a much needed oasis in Allen’s life.

“If I don’t take them,” Allen said, filling his straw with his strawberry lemonade and then capping one end of it with his finger. They were meeting up for their customary lunch break together, Allen sitting on one side of the small square table and Lena and Lavi on the other. The bistro was mildly packed for the lunch hour, but they’d already eaten their meals and were on dessert. “They’ll think it’s because I’m ashamed of them or something, which is _really_ not it, but for whatever reason they won’t believe me when I say my family should qualify as the eleventh circle of hell.”

“Tenth,” Lavi corrected, watching Allen sprinkle drops of lemonade on his scrunched up straw wrapper. He was mildly amused and mildly worried, and wholly involved, which was par for the course for Lavi. He loved being in everybody’s business. “There’s nine circles, so your family would be the tenth—” at Allen’s seething look, Lavi hastened to be more comforting and less amused. “Allen, calm down buddy, I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

“I don’t know,” Lenalee mused, spearing her key lime pie with a fork to daintily bite. She had stolen Lavi’s dessert the moment it had come and he’d allowed it graciously. “I’d hate to introduce anyone to my brother. If Allen’s family is that bad, I understand where he might be, ah, nervous to.”

“That’s what I should have said!” Allen pronounced loudly, dropping his straw with a _plink_ into his cup. “That they’re like Komui, only worse because there’s _several_ of them.”

Lenalee’s eyes narrowed and Allen hurriedly went back to his nervous fidgeting, grabbing Lavi’s notebook he carried with him everywhere. It was just to repeatedly thumb the pages through with a quick flutter and Lavi allowed it, knowing Allen wouldn’t violate his privacy.

“I mean,” Allen continued, wary of Lenalee’s ire, “they’re overwhelming. They’re really… they have really big personalities.” Allen paused for a beat, then said, “They’re _embarrassing.”_

“You’ll have to deal with it,” Lenalee said primly, sympathy over now that Allen had insulted her brother. “You met Kanda’s dad and Link’s…. uhm. Brothers and sisters?”

“Something like it,” Allen said with a wave of his hand.

“Right. You met them, so it’s only fair they meet your family. Isn’t it kind of official? To make it permanent, I mean.”

“Permanent?” Allen echoed, staring at her blankly, the mad fluttering of the pages coming to an abrupt stop. Suddenly Allen laughed, loud and jittery. “Lenalee! That’s funny. Meeting my family to make things _official.”_ He tapped his fingers in a staccato rhythm on the fake woodgrain, too quick.

Lavi placed his palm over Allen’s hand and forced his fingers flat, amusement gone and worry winning out. His eyes flickered from Lavi’s to Lenalee’s equally concerned face and finally to his hand under Lavi’s, mute. For a beat, he heard nothing but the roar of his blood in his ears.

“It’ll be fine,” Lavi said soothingly. At his side Lenalee nodded with conviction. “Don’t _worry_ so much. I mean, they’re going for you, y’know? It’s already been so long now, I’m sure something like a wild cousin or two won’t drive them off.”

Allen deflated, staring at the freckles on the back of Lavi’s hand.

Lenalee pushed her half-eaten pie to Allen’s side of the table, and he morosely swallowed a bite, the heavy cream sitting on his tongue.

“Right,” Allen said with mock cheer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nea-writes, updating more than once a week? OOC.
> 
> Jokes aside, I'm genuinely enjoying this au so much and it's so _easy_ to write.

“Listen,” Allen began again, and Kanda stifled a groan, slouching where he sat in the backseat. Tim sighed in his sleep, head on Kanda’s lap. Mugen had been left in Lena’s capable experienced hands, though Kanda had given her a large list of instructions just to be sure.

Link’s sedan was just the right make to not look too much like the stereotypical suburban soccer mom’s car, but he himself fit the role so neatly that every time Kanda sat in it he felt the urge to jam his knees into the back of Link’s seat as best he could. Link, who drove with the precision of something closer to machine than human, did his best to lock his seat as far back as he could, which left Kanda’s knees all jammed up anyways.

No one said their relationship was based on any kind of maturity.

“I don’t really worry about Link,” Allen was saying, speaking to the air vent as he tried his best to get rid of whatever nerves seemed to possess him. “But you, Kanda, are a nightmare.”

“Fuck you,” Kanda said cordially, trying to stretch his legs out on the fourth hour of a promised five-hour trip, jostling Tim’s heavy head. He slumbered on, undisturbed.

This would be the fifth time Allen felt the need to remind them of the litany of rules and, going by the way he was eyeing Kanda, the eighth time he’d beg Kanda to mind any social graces he could possibly scrape together.

According to Allen, his family was nitpicky, strict, demanding, authoritative, controlling, loving, but also exacting. It sounded a lot like hell, but despite what the asshole thought, Kanda _did_ have enough social sense not to say as much aloud.

Link, who was driving, stifled a longsuffering sigh.

“They like to tease,” Allen said.

“Like you,” Kanda interjected.

“But if you give in to them, they’ll _never stop.”_

“Like a certain beansprout?”

“They’re finicky. They’re capricious.”

At the wheel, Link grunted something like shock.

“They like to pull pranks.”

“Are you sure we’re not going to find several clones of you?” Kanda demanded, temper short after a four-hour drive and several of these lectures.

“God, no,” Allen said, genuinely looking horrified at the thought.

“What a relief,” Kanda muttered. He bunched his shoulders up and shoved himself closer to the window, staring out at the miles of plains that existed between towns. Kanda was beginning to dread the upcoming trip more than he was dreading the idea of Allen opening his mouth again, which by Kanda’s watch was going to be in the next forty-five minutes.

“I’m _serious,”_ Allen said, voice pitching just that level of whiny to be annoying and not cute.

“We know you are,” Link assured, fingers thrumming rhythmically on the steering wheel. “You’ve made that quite evident.”

Kanda snorted, amused.

Allen sighed and leaned back, propping his feet up on Link’s dashboard to his outcry of dismay. Link kept his car _spotless,_ which was a feat considering how many sweets he and Allen combined ate in it. He washed it once a week and had it professionally cleaned once a month, and Kanda was expressly forbidden from driving it.

Fuck Link and what _he_ thought. Kanda was a _much_ better driver than the beansprout, but Link claimed his temper ought to be a demerit on his insurance. Link could be a right asshole at times.

“Tyki is going to have a field day with you two,” Allen murmured, scrolling through something on his phone. He was connected to Link’s stereo and was currently playing one of his myriad of playlists, though Link _and_ Kanda preferred to drive in silence. Prick.

“Tyki?” Link asked politely.

Allen gestured to his left with his phone, staring out the windshield as he spoke. “Tyki Mikk, my cousin. Well. Something like that. Don’t ask how any of us are related because frankly we don’t really know and I’m pretty sure Neah avoids telling us just to be a prat.”

“Prat?” Kanda mocked, delighted at the idea of new fuel for mercilessly mocking Allen.

Even from where he sat Kanda could see the sharp down turn Allen’s lips took. “Yes, a _prat._ You two are going to hate each other, I know it. Like water and oil.”

That wasn’t really a great qualifier for Kanda, since Kanda hated most people. He’d started off hating Link and Allen, too. Perhaps the only one Kanda had never hated was Lenalee.

“If I had to pick,” Allen continued, “Tyki, Road, and Neah are the ones I’m closest to. But don’t let that fool you into thinking we get along. Because we don’t. At all.”

It was incredibly hard to decide whether Allen and his family got along famously or infamously, but it was getting much easier to figure out how Allen had come out into the world the way he was.

It was close to eleven in the morning now, which meant they should’ve been there already since they’d left at five, but both Link and Allen had demanded several stops for grabbing as many snacks and drinks as they could and then the subsequent restroom breaks that followed. Allen had even devoured an entire chili hot dog and _still_ Link’s car was spotless. Not to mention the few necessary pit stops for Timcanpy to run off the mass of energy he seemed to be made of. It was why he was currently sleeping instead of attempting to chew off Allen’s headrest.

Kanda, who had the sense to eat a hearty breakfast, had endured this with as much patience as he could possibly muster together. Which was very little and had resulted in three separate arguments just for the sake of being difficult.

“Are you sure,” Link asked, the third time he had since they’d begun planning this trip two weeks ago, “that we can just drop in unannounced like this?”

“Oh, sure,” Allen replied lazily, tapping something out furiously on his phone. “They did it to me all the time back when they still knew where I lived. This is just payback.”

“But did they bring their significant others?” Link stressed, who was the type to be overly concerned about social etiquette like this.

Allen blinked, looked up at Link, and then did a whole-body kind of shudder, releasing it in a disgusted sigh. “Tyki did,” Allen said after his bout of dramatics. “Thankfully, the rest didn’t.”

“Even if Tyki hadn’t,” Allen toed off his shoes and socks and sat with his feet flat on the seat, a kind of flexibility Kanda could never aspire to, “it still wouldn’t matter. I promise they won’t even notice you two at first. The house is huge, it’s really a shame so many of the rooms go unused.”

Both Kanda and Link had grown up in a moderately upper-middle class home, which could boast ‘several’ rooms by virtue of Tiedoll’s impressive art career and Leverrier’s (corrupt) career as a senator. However, what Allen was describing seemed far beyond what they’d lived.

Which made little to no sense, since Allen was more severe at penny-pinching than the middle-aged wives Kanda bumped into far too often at the supermarket.

Mercifully, Allen finally stopped talking, and Link must’ve felt the searing holes Kanda was glaring into his head because he refrained from asking any more questions aside from clarifications on directions. Shortly after, Tim woke up and Link rolled down the windows so he could enjoy the breeze, even though it was just hot enough to be uncomfortable.

It was approaching noon by the time they started the long drive down a road Allen assured them was already part of their property.

The road split a seemingly endless grove of trees like a line in the sand. They had gnarled large roots and trunks that indicated they’d been here for decades now, with such large crowns that the entire area appeared dim with spots of sun-rays breaking through the leaves. It was a breath-taking sight, truth be told, and Kanda could foresee taking walks with Timcanpy there.  

Everything felt quieter, calmer, more somber. It painted a certain expectation of what they might see at the end of the road, something like a grand house all dark and spooky.

Frankly, it looked like the set of a horror movie, which suited Allen far more than it should’ve.

“This is… impressive,” Link said, breaking the heavy silence that had fallen.

“Yeah,” Allen said, slumping his seat as he stared out the window, breeze ruffling his bangs back. “It’s way too long.”

“I could see how it’d be inconvenient on a daily basis,” Link agreed.

It was several more minutes of the threatening trees before finally they saw the brightening glimpse of the end. The trees petered out and at last, in a large field filled with gardens and statues and general opulence, was a fucking _mansion._

Kanda stared, overwhelmed.

“Welcome to Campbell Manor,” Allen grumbled, bitter.

 

* * *

 

Link had no idea where to park, and he was beginning to leave words out of his sentences, a quirk he had whenever his mind was racing too fast for his mouth to keep up. It would’ve been funny if Kanda wasn’t as equally thunder-struck.

“I told you,” Allen scowled, glaring at the manor as if it had personally run over his dog.

Sighing, Allen pointed out an innocuous patch of grass closer to the front doors (or what Kanda assumed was the front entrance because, quite frankly, all the windows and decorative ledges, columns, molding, and arches were beyond his comprehension). There was still a fountain and a circular type of garden between the grass where Link parked and the fucking-god-knows-what that Allen had gestured to.

Link turned the ignition off and they sat in silence for a moment.

“You know,” Allen said, and Kanda, who hadn’t removed his eyes from the house, saw the flutter of a curtain in one of the, approximately, several hundred windows. “We can drive back.”

That ridiculous statement shook Kanda out of his stupor.

_“Fuck_ that,” Kanda said. “Five more hours with you and this dog?” Kanda pointed to Tim, who was ruining Link’s seats with his restless wiggling. “No.”

“I agree,” Link said after clearing his throat. “It was just… a little more than we expected.”

“You could’ve fucking mentioned you lived in a goddamn _mansion,”_ Kanda seethed.

“But I don’t!” Allen said, offended. “They do!”

It was a distinction Kanda understood, because he said the same thing about Tiedoll’s house, but that still didn’t clear Allen of any wrong-doing, though no reason Allen ever had was enough to remove him from Kanda’s shitlist.

“Regardless,” Link sliced through their incoming argument seamlessly, physically interjecting himself by turning to face them both, “we’re here. Neither of us want to turn back.”

Allen stared at them both, as if weighing their responses before sighing and giving up with a shrug. “Your loss,” Allen said, then opened the door and stepped out. He reached for the door behind him and opened it for Tim, holding it as Kanda slid out as well.

Excited to finally be free, Timcanpy ran circles around Allen so tightly he nearly knocked him over and then bound around the car and further out, exploring the large expanse he had for himself.

Kanda moved to the trunk to grab Timcanpy’s bowls, bottled water and bags of dog food, thumping his hand on the side of the sedan. Link popped the trunk free.

The trunk lifting masked the sound of the front door opening, but not even Timcanpy’s boisterous and ground-shaking barks could obscure the shriek that split the air.

_“Allen!”_

Startled, Kanda looked up to find an actual gremlin launch itself at Allen and take him straight to the ground.

He was moving before he knew it, reaching to grab the scruff of whoever-the-fuck it was when a voice stopped him just short of it, cold and deadly and all at once chilling.

“I wouldn’t touch her if I were you.”

Looking up, Kanda locked eyes with Allen’s spitting image. It smiled, just like Allen, and in one easy motion, lifted both Allen and the rugrat into a hug so possessive it felt more animalistic than human.

“Welcome home, Allen.”

Allen shuffled in the man’s grasp to free a hand that he wrapped around him, and even though Kanda couldn’t see his face he could hear the smile in his words.

“It’s good to be back, Neah.”

**Author's Note:**

> nea_chi | twitter  
> nea-wites | tumblr
> 
> Guess I'll add this to the growing list of modern aus that are slightly different but more alike than not.


End file.
